


Keep Yourself Alive

by mithrel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Chronic Pain, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Wing Grooming, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: Crowley finally lets Aziraphale groom his wings.





	Keep Yourself Alive

Crowley runs his hand one final time over the feathers beneath his fingers, then gives the wing a last pat. “There you go.”

Aziraphale stretches his wings, a soft fluttering sound in the semidarkness. “Thank you, dearest. You must let me return the favour sometime.”

Crowley does his best to conceal his wince, hoping the low light will disguise it. Says what he always says. “Maybe.”

Crowley’s never told Aziraphale about his Fall. He still has nightmares about it, more than six millennia on. He won’t subject Aziraphale to that.

Most of the other demons don’t think about their wings, much. If they do, it’s as a badge of pride. They let the pain fuel their anger against Heaven.

Crowley’s different. His wings hurt just the same, of course, as much as they did the moment he first landed in Hell. But he’s managed to somehow put a kind of shield over them, tucking them away so they can’t be hurt any more.

The one time he did show them, that time in Eden, was a semi-accident. It was the first time he’d left Hell since his Fall, and he’d been drunk with freedom, the successful Temptation of Eve, and, yes, with Aziraphale’s presence.

But to bring them out now, to let Aziraphale _touch_ them…Crowley shivers. He doesn’t even want to imagine the agony.

So he moves to distract the angel. Luckily, by now, he’s had quite a lot of practice.

***

A few years later, he’s dozing with his head in Aziraphale’s lap. One of the angel's hands is absently carding through Crowley’s hair, the other holding a book.

Aziraphale sighs and sets the book aside. Crowley blinks up at him.

Aziraphale’s hand grips his shoulder softly. “When are you going to let me groom your wings?”

Crowley’s heart rate rockets from 50 to a thousand and a half beats per minute. Blindsided, he stammers “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

Aziraphale sighs again and looks at him reproachfully. “Dearest, for the past century or more you’ve been grooming my wings once per week, but you haven’t even let me _see_ yours apart from the once.”

Crowley does wince, this time, sitting up hastily. “I…angel, it’s not like that!”

“What is it like, then?” Aziraphale asks, his tone hurt. It’s clear he’s been brooding on this for some time.

Crowley scrubs a hand over his eyes. “I just…would prefer to keep them hidden, that’s all.”

“From most, certainly, but why from me?”

“It’s…complicated.”

Aziraphale nods tightly, his lips thin. “I see.”

He doesn’t bring it up again for nearly fifty years.

***

Finally, one day, Crowley breaks down. He finishes his weekly grooming of Aziraphale’s wings and sits down. Aziraphale looks at him quizzically, as with a whisper of power, Crowley brings his wings out.

Aziraphale gasps softly and reaches out a hand to touch, but stops at Crowley’s urgent “ _Wait._ ”

Crowley clenches his eyes shut and thins his lips, concentrating on the shield, bringing it down for the first time ever. After a moment he feels the power wisp away, and nods.

Crowley braces himself, gritting his teeth, determined that no matter how much it hurts, he’ll give no sign.

When Aziraphale first touches him, Crowley gasps. He can’t help it.

Aziraphale pulls away immediately, an apology on his lips, and Crowley almost cries.

Because where Aziraphale touched him, there was _no pain._ Not even the constant acid-etching that he’s forced into the background through sheer stubbornness over the millennia.

Aziraphale is still looking at him, concern in his eyes. “Are you all right, dearest?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Crowley manages through the renewed ache rapidly throbbing into something worse.

Aziraphale looks unconvinced, and Crowley almost screams in frustration. “ _Trust_ me, angel, I’d tell you if there was something wrong.”

Aziraphale’s fingers hesitantly return to his wings. It wasn’t a fluke. The feathers and skin under his fingers feel completely normal. The pain returns when he moves on, but it’s considerably lessened.

Aziraphale hums to himself, occasionally tutting over “the state you’ve let yourself get into.” For him this is just routine, a favour they do for each other, despite the fact that it’s the first time he’s been on this end. Crowley is reeling, trying to figure out how this is _possible,_ let alone actually happening.

After far too short a time, he’s done and lifts his hands away. Crowley blinks the dampness out of his eyes, cautiously stretching his wings, assessing.

The pain is still there, but now, rather than feeling like there’s acid coating the feathers, bones and muscle beneath them, and running through the capillaries, he only feels like his wings are being pressed between sheets of white-hot metal. Not much of an improvement, one might say, but Crowley is impossibly grateful.

He manages to put the shield up again and banishes his wings, for the first time looking over his shoulder at Aziraphale.

The angel looks a bit put out. “Really, dearest, I don’t see what all the fuss was about. You should have let me do this ages ago.”

Crowley mutely agrees.

***

It becomes routine after that. On Sunday evening they’ll sit on the couch together and groom one another’s wings. Crowley has to stop himself from asking Aziraphale to do it more often, lest he get suspicious.

Aziraphale’s hands continue to soothe the pain, and Crowley’s beyond questioning it by now, and is just grateful. Even he hadn’t been able to imagine the pain away.

From being pressed between white-hot metal sheets, his wings go to feeling like they have a third-degree sunburn, constantly hovering before the moment of relief when the nerves die.

From there, it goes to the radiating scream of a gunshot, then the numb pain of frostbite, then merely a dull ache as of over-exercised muscles.

Finally there’s a night when the pain doesn’t return when Aziraphale moves to a different part of his wing, a night when there’s no pain at all.

Crowley can’t help it.

He starts crying.

Aziraphale immediately takes him by the shoulders and turns him around, and Crowley buries his face in his shoulder.

Aziraphale strokes his hair and makes soothing noises for awhile, then, after Crowley’s sobs have quieted somewhat, he asks softly, “Dearest, please tell me what’s wrong.”

“It hurt,” Crowley manages.

He sees the horror spreading over Aziraphale’s face, as he asks, “What hurt?”

“My wings.”

“And you let me…” Aziraphale’s mouth works for a moment. “Dearest, you should have _told_ me! I’d never want to hurt you, make you do something you didn’t–”

“Nono _no_!” Crowley says, finally pulling himself together enough to reassure him. “It wasn’t you, angel. My wings hurt before. All demons’ do.”

Aziraphale looks at him, brow furrowed. “All the time?”

Crowley nods solemnly. “All the time. Since I Fell.”

Aziraphale’s expression doesn’t smooth over. “Still, you should never have let me–”

Crowley pulls away, takes hold of Aziraphale’s shoulders in both hands, looks in his eyes. “Angel, you don’t understand. My wings always hurt. _Always._ But they don’t now.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. “You mean I somehow…”

“Healed me? _Fixed_ me? Yeah.”

“B-but that makes no sense!”

“Does it _matter_? I’m just thankful for something I never expected.”

“But…no,” Aziraphale says, the same look on his face as when he’s figuring out a thorny question on the crossword. “We need to figure this out.”

Crowley spreads his hands. “It’s beyond me.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, thinking out loud. “It seems to me–correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, looking at Crowley, “that the worst part of Falling isn’t the actual _Fall,_ it’s the…absence, the absence of Her love.”

Crowley pulls a face. “The actual Fall was pretty bad. But…go on.”

Aziraphale rubs a hand over the back of his head, mussing his hair. “All demons, before they Fell, were angels. And angels are creatures of love. Her love, our love, every love.”

“I’m following you so far,” Crowley says, privately thinking that most of the angels he’s met don’t fit that description.

“So…imagine–well, you don’t have to imagine, sorry–but think of what it’s like for a being of pure love to be suddenly… _cut off_ from God’s love, Her presence…it would be devastating.”

“…Maybe,” Crowley agrees cautiously.

“And angels aren’t used to dealing with emotions. I know it was difficult for me when I first came here,” Aziraphale says. “So that emotional pain…what if they _transmuted_ it somehow into physical pain?”

“So, the pain in my wings all these millennia…” Crowley starts.

“Was the manifestation of your distress at no longer having access to Her love, yes,” Aziraphale concludes, looking satisfied.

“But _look,_ ” Crowley protests. “Even if that’s true, okay, and I’m _not saying it is,_ ” he interjects at Aziraphale’s smug look, “Why did it take until now to fix it? I mean, we’ve been together for nearly two centuries, and I know…” he falters, whispers “I know you love me.”

Aziraphale sticks his lip out, thinking. “Well, I’ve…erm, shown my love to pretty much every part of you,” he mumbles, going rather endearingly pink, “but I hadn’t touched your wings up until about a month ago.”

Crowley stops, opens his mouth, closes it again. “Huh. That must be it.”

He lies back against Aziraphale, pillowing his head on the angel’s shoulder. “Thank you, angel,” he mumbles into his shoulder.

Aziraphale pets his hair. “I just wish you’d told me sooner. Why didn’t you?”

Crowley shifts, uncomfortable. “Well. Was ashamed, wasn’t I?”

Aziraphale pulls away, looking at him with a bemused expression on his face. “Whatever for?”

“Well, I _Fell,_ didn’t I? Couldn’t figure out for the longest time why you even put up with me, much less–" He waves a hand in a vague gesture.

Aziraphale’s face goes unaccustomedly stern. “Don’t be silly. It wasn’t your fault that you Fell. All you did was ask a few questions.”

Crowley sighs. “That was enough.”

Aziraphale gets a resolute look on his face. “Well, dearest, I’ve never actually said so before, but I think in your case…She made a mistake.”

He flinches and looks upward, apparently out of reflex, but nothing happens, no bolt comes from Heaven to smite them. And, really, if She hadn’t cared when they became friends, said they loved each other, started having sex, why should She care if Aziraphale says She made a mistake? But apparently Aziraphale was legitimately worried about it, so Crowley doesn’t say anything, just settles back against him.


End file.
